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economics of innovation
at chevron, our people innovate and develop technologies that help us economically and safely deliver affordable, reliable energy around the world
technology differentiates our performance in times of low commodity prices
It's said that people who believe they can change the world are the ones who do. At Chevron, our people take this can-do spirit seriously; innovating and developing technologies that help us economically and safely deliver affordable, reliable energy around the world. This is something we do in any business environment, but the economics of innovation, efficiency and cost management are even more important when commodity prices are low. The technologies we deploy help us find and commercialize new oil and gas fields cost-effectively and also help us recover more resources from existing fields. They enable us to integrate data and information so that we can manage and develop our global assets efficiently. And they help us operate safely and reliably with a smaller environmental footprint.
ensuring safe drilling operations
Chevron continues to focus on reducing the probability of incidents in our drilling operations. Our Decision Support Center is responsible for remote, real-time monitoring of our most complex wells around the world. The DSC also provides remote directional drilling thereby providing an additional safety element by reducing personnel from the rig site. The state-of-the-art center provides immediate support and advise to ensure safe, reliable, efficient operations and high performance.
enhanced decision making
horizontal steam injection
In California's San Joaquin Valley, our first project to inject steam from a horizontal well into a heavy oil reservoir has yielded encouraging oil production response while reducing our environmental footprint. The pilot project included our industry-leading downhole fiber-optic-based steam injection flow profiling methodology, as well as multiple configurations of our own flow control (and isolation) devices for optimizing steam distribution. Best practices will be deployed worldwide for all horizontal wells using steam. The flow profiling success also has applications in the increasingly sophisticated use of wellbore surveillance in unconventional and offshore assets.
how horizontal steam injection works
nuclear magnetic resonance technology
Chevron continues applying Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technology to oilfield applications. Our researchers are working to develop a state-of-the-art, integrated high-temperature, high-pressure and multiphase NMR laboratory in Houston, Texas. The lab will enable the development of innovative NMR technologies to acquire petrophysical data not previously available. These technologies replicate downhole flow conditions to characterize the reservoir and enhance well productivity in our most challenging tight and heavy oil assets. Additional efforts are underway to make NMR technology portable for field applications.
nuclear magnetic resonance in action
crossing the congo
Chevron connected two wellbores drilled from separate jack-up rigs and pulled through a gas pipeline conduit to form a nearly 4.5 mile pipeline under the Congo River submarine canyon offshore Angola. The Congo River Canyon crossing is part of the pipeline that is designed to transport up to 250 million cubic feet per day of natural gas from Blocks 0 and 14 to Chevron's Angola LNG plant. This is the largest well-intersection project executed by Chevron.
congo river canyon well intersection
advanced seismic imaging
We continued expanding advanced seismic acquisition and processing technologies – ocean bottom nodes and full waveform inversion modeling, for example – as well as the use of interpretive and interactive seismic modeling and imaging algorithms. These technologies improve our understanding of complex subsurface conditions throughout the life of assets from the exploration stage to ongoing reservoir management.


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Our Company Profile
Land & Water Engineering Science provides public agencies and private sector clients with water resources and civil engineering consulting services, regulatory support, and construction engineering and inspections. Located in the Tampa Bay area, we serve clients across central and southwest Florida, and are recognized for providing innovative solutions for the built and developing environment. Clients rely on our expertise to provide sustainable solutions and cost effective engineering services with in-depth regulatory knowledge.
We are guided by our values, code of conduct, and purpose: to enhance the environment and the quality of life in the communities in which we serve.

subset: commoncrawl


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50 of the world's finest street artists have been given the run of a derelict nightclub in the heart of Paris.
Les Bains-Douches, a stone's throw from the Pompidou Centre, was built in 1885 as a municipal bathhouse. More recently, as Les Bains, it became one of the coolest nightclubs in Paris, in its time a favourite haunt of Mick Jagger, Kate Moss, Johnny Depp and Andy Warhol. But some over-enthusiastic DIY work by the nightclub's director led to the building being declared a safety hazard and in 2010, it was ordered to be closed. ~continue reading


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While Spain's restaurant bread didn't impress me on my last visit, two bread areas stood out; Javier Marca's wonderful artisan loaves and those found at San Sebastian's The Loaf, where the baking is directed by Dan Lepard and his team.
Having had the treat of working with them on my visit, I wanted to recreate one of their favorites, something I helped with but had to leave without actually eating. It's called Pan Gallego, or "bread of Galicia," the North-westernmost province in Spain.
It's a top knotted loaf (mota) with a speckle of rye in the wheat crumb, and dose of levain and bit of yeast. I recall making a similar loaf in school which my instructor mistakenly called "Turks head" because of the twist. Anyway, the loaves Dan had made in San Sebastian, were terrific. The other day I decided to follow this formula, and was really pleased with the results!
Pan Gallego
Pan Gallego
450g bread flour
50g Rye
150g levain
360g h20
10g yeast (Optional if your a purist, or Mick…me, I'm occasionally the "lazy baker"!)


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The End of Influence
For as long as many can remember, the United States has been the country with money, influence, and power. But all that is changing, write Brad DeLong and Stephen Cohen in their new book, The End of Influence. FP excerpts exclusively here.BY BRAD DELONG, STEPHEN COHEN | DECEMBER 23, 2009
For more than a quarter century now the countries of the world have been dreaming the neoliberals' dream. They have been trying to shrink their states back to their core competencies to promote economic efficiency, global economic integration, and growth, and to slash through red tape, rent-seeking, and simple corruption. They have been actively privatizing state holdings. They have hugely reduced their ownership and their active involvement in "national champion" companies. They have cut back on interventions to affect market outcomes and on regulation to scrutinize and control market players.
But now they are waking up. And the neoliberals' dream is at an end.
To understand why, we need to journey back to the mid-20th century. The coming of World War II ensured that whatever money still remained in Britain left quickly. Franklin Delano Roosevelt ruled an isolationist country that he wished to cajole into engaging in the war with Hitler as early and as completely as he could. But part of Roosevelt's strategy (and a not-altogether unwelcome consequence, for many who worked in the State, War, and Navy Building-a Victorian-era structure just west of the White House that looked like a French brothel) was to make Britain broke before American taxpayers' money was committed in any way to the fight against Hitler. Only after Britain had sold off the family silver to pay for the nozzle would America "lend" Britain its garden hose to fight the Hitlerian fire.
America did come to the aid of its closest, cherished, and most important embattled overseas ally after Britain was broke. The Grand Alliance was the great moment in the grand story of the English-speaking nations. It does remain Churchillian in the inherited grandeur of its narrative. And America did come to the rescue of England, and together-with enormous although unloved assistance from the Red Army of the Soviet Union and Josef Stalin-America did save the world from the horrors of the Nazis. But while we were gearing up to come to the rescue, we squeezed the British, and when World War II was over, the United States, not Britain, had the money. When the British borrowed money from us, it had to be repaid in dollars, not in sterling. And imports into Britain had to be rationed well into the 1950s.
Will the United States be similarly squeezed? No. We are not engaged in a total war. We do not domestically produce only 1,200 calories of food per citizen per day. We are still by far the world's largest national economy. The United States is technologically powerful and resourceful and is still the center of world finance. World finance is still transacted in dollars. And the United States remains the world's only military superpower, whatever that may turn out to mean.
But the United States is losing the money. America is now massively in debt to foreigners and will be more in debt with each passing year as far into the future as forecasters can see. It will not be squeezed as it squeezed Britain, but it will be constrained.
Back when the United States had the money, it used it to pay attention to other governments only when it chose and to make certain that other governments paid attention to the United States even when they wished to not so choose. With the Marshall Plan, America made Western Europe an offer that all but forced Western Europe to adopt the mixed-economy social-democratic order of the post-World War II North Atlantic. It financed and arranged "regime change" in lesser countries to remove governments that seemed to be veering off into serious error. In all this, the United States used the leverage of having the money exclusively for the global greater good.
Who has the money now? What can they do with it? What are they holding? The smallest big batch of money held by other people is simply cash: greenbacks. Perhaps $450 billion, perhaps more, circulates abroad in cash, in hundred-dollar bills. Some countries, such as Panama and Ecuador, have formally gone over to a dollar economy. In other countries (such as Lebanon), cash dollars are widely used. Then, of course, many individuals and organizations prefer the anonymous convenience of hundred-dollar bills: drug dealers; arms merchants; Russian operators; Argentines and Eastern Europeans with doubts about their local currency; rich and not-so-rich Chinese, who live in a cash economy where the largest Chinese currency note in circulation is 100 yuan (about $15). Though not often discussed in polite company, seigniorage, that is, the ability to coin or print cash (the right held by a feudal seigneur) and have other folks hold it, is valuable: Those who hold the $100 bills have, for many, many years, been providing a substantial loan to the U.S. government -- and it's interest free!
The bigger big batches of dollar-denominated and U.S.-located assets -- and they are very big indeed -- are not cash but are rather investments. A great deal is held by private foreign individuals and organizations: Japanese housewives, German doctors, Scottish pension funds, Dutch companies, Colombian drug lords, Japanese insurance companies, sons of Gulf sheiks, and Russian "businessmen."
This money is private money. It belongs to market players -- people, companies, organizations, and institutions looking for the highest returns at the lowest risk. Much of the money is in the hands of the governments and rulers of oil-producing states (or in the hands of whatever or whoever holds their money). Truly great piles of U.S. obligations are in the hands of the governments of Asia. Japan holds about $1 trillion in reserves (which comes to almost $9,000 per U.S. household). Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore together hold something like $500 billion. Korea sits on another $200 billion.
But it's China that is the biggest holder of U.S. obligations, with some $2.5 trillion in "reserves," the lion's share of it in U.S. debt obligations. America owes unimaginably large amounts of money to lenders (such as China), about $20,000 per American household, three-fourths of China's GDP, a fact worth repeating, a fact that makes rapid repayment impossible.
Proverbs 22:7 instructs us: "The borrower is servant to the lender." But the lesson requires some exegesis to fit smoothly into context. The burden of the U.S. foreign debt may be better explained by the oft-repeated Wall Street wisecrack, which we repeat: When you owe the bank $1 million, the bank has got you; when you owe the bank $1 billion, you've got the bank.
Neither side can walk away; we're locked. The debt binds China especially and other governments that have the money. Selling the debt would send the dollar way down and thereby destroy the value of their dollar holdings and severely damage their economies' massive export-based sectors. Worse yet, sell it for what? Their "reserves" are so huge that there is nothing else they can hold them in, not at that scale. From a Chinese viewpoint, it's exasperating.
The U.S.-China economic imbalance has forced the two powers into a very intimate and not very desired embrace, something Lawrence Summers once called a financial balance of terror. This is all to the good: The two powers must learn to work as partners, and not just in economic matters -- global warming and global order also need positive Sino-American cooperation, and they are much more important long-term issues. Sino-American partnership, in managing the complex mess of their imbalanced economic codependency, can constitute a good beginning for managing the utterly unhinged problems of world balance and order. We have no acceptable choice but to get good at it, and that will take some doing on both sides.
As money alters power relations, the United States is not simply becoming dependent -- but it is no longer independent, either. That is a major change. And China is no longer helpless and cowed in face of the superpower hegemon; it has got a grip on it. Indeed, while the world peeks in, the two countries are realizing that they have thrown themselves into an intimate economic embrace with, to say the least, very mixed feelings.
For the past 30 years, America rather successfully propagated to itself and others a worldview of unfettered markets and "re-fettered" states: Expand the realm of markets in society and roll back the reach of other institutions, especially government. They backed that worldview with money and, until it crashed, this American outlook was willingly adopted by more and more people and governments around the globe. Soft power -- not military might, not straight-out money, but the ability to inspire acceptance and imitation -- was a vital component of American international dominance. It soothed the abrasiveness of military and economic power and made the wielders of such power feel good.
Money, of course, is power. Because America had the money -- had it solidly, rightfully, self-assuredly, and durably -- for about 100 years, people all over the world wanted to be like Americans: successful, modern, loose-jointed, efficient, democratic, socially mobile, leggy, clean, powerful, and, of course, rich. Money brings a nation power, not just the power to command, or at least influence, the behavior of other nations. And when the money accumulates over time and as a result of real economic success, and not just windfalls from guano or oil deposits, it brings the power to propagate, consciously or not, the ideas, concerns, fashions, norms, interests, amusements, and ways of displaying and behaving that come out of its culture. These penetrate deep down into other cultures as well as its own; they become part of daily life. This is luxuriant power: It doesn't have to be exercised willfully or even consciously, and it doesn't even cost anything extra. It was clearly the way to be.
As the United States emerged in the aftermath of World War I as the top power and giant money master, American jazz swept through Europe, faster than Ford and Kodak. Later, especially after World War II, Europeans eagerly welcomed the onslaught of American movies. Most Europeans encountered America at the movies, but two generations of rather privileged Europeans traveled to America to see for themselves (many sponsored by the State Department), to behold the skyscrapers of New York, the George Washington and Golden Gate bridges, and the houses of rather ordinary people with huge shiny cars, washing machines, televisions, and the orthodontically enhanced smiles on tall, milk- and meat-fed women.
American cultural dominance has continued to grow. Teenagers around the globe now uniformly dress in styles pioneered by American teens and have even adopted the same body language. They eat on the street. The American-designed, Asian-manufactured iPods fill their heads with the same harsh music; they instant-message, blog, and Tweet. And the English language -- not altogether an American cultural invention -- is not merely the international language, but also the second language for a vast global population: Languages carry more than their words and grammar; they carry cultural form and content.
America will be less and less the origin of new cultural trends or global memes: First, because the others now have the money. But also, because while America remains especially modern, the modern is no longer especially American; it is rapidly becoming semiglobal and if not old, at least very mature. There is no need to leave China to see skyscrapers; there are more of them in Shanghai than in New York, and they are newer, taller and bolder. The energy -- that key element in New York 1920s literature (e.g., Dos Passos) has, with the money, shifted its residence. For the foreign traveler now arriving at New York's Kennedy airport, the ride into Manhattan is still eye-opening, but in a new way: litter and slums line the Van Wyck Expressway through Jamaica, Queens, where rust and graffiti festoon the old transit trains and bridges; the roads are poor; there is no proper train into town -- let alone something as sleek and fast as in Hong Kong or Shanghai. Hollywood no longer has an inherited, built-in meganarrative -- the presentation of life in modernity in all its weird and quotidian forms: How women walk and speak, houses, murder, seduction, sex, kitchens, raising children, "making it," excursions, courtrooms, shopping centers, schools, hospitals, universities, and office buildings -- the world, perhaps of your future.
The culture created by America and exported by its movies is not gone; it's not even going. It has simply gone universal and is now open to a vastly expanded range of contributors. This is very likely to be a good thing for American and world culture, an opening to new ideas, talents, and energies. And America's ambient culture is being enriched by foreign imports ranging from soccer to sushi, not to mention energetic Ph.D.'s in material and biological sciences.
America is sure to remain a leader in cultural power, but there is a difference between being a cultural leader and an easy, almost un-self-conscious cultural dominance. Our research universities are the envy -- and model -- for the world. So too are our high-tech, biotech, and nanotech genre Silicon Valley-type firms, with their multinational, multiracial, and monocultural workforces of the bright, ambitious, educated, and driven. And there is also a powerful emergent American cultural force best represented by Barack and Michelle Obama: America might yet develop new meganarratives to succeed the world of modernity that will seize the world's hearts, fears, longings, and energies. But no matter how creative its creative people become, as in the realms of economic and political power, America is unlikely to remain the cultural hegemon, the overwhelmingly dominant source of cultural memes.
HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images
Brad Delong is an economist at the University of California, Berkeley and pens the economics blog, Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal. Stephen Cohen is a professor of regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley and co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Their new book, The End of Influence, will be available from Basic Books on January 1.


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Find Our Latest Video Reviews on YouTube!
If you want to stay on top of all of our video reviews of the latest tech, be sure to check out and subscribe to the Gear Live YouTube channel, hosted by Andru Edwards! It's free!
Wednesday November 12, 2008 1:07 pm
Duracell Powerpack 450 With Voice
Next time you experience a black out, wouldn't it be a fine thing to have someone to comfort you during the experience? The Duracell Powerpack 450 with Voice acts a a portable power source for laptops, cellies, GPS devices, small appliances and other electronics as well as a night light. The stand-alone works for AC, DC and USB powered devices. Best of all, the quiet powerpack talks you through jump starting your car or using its air compressor. Find it for ~$129.00, depending on the retailer.
Read More | Duracell
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Wreck-It Ralph Gets Release Dates For The Small Screen
Wreck-It Ralph made a splash last year, garnering adoration from gamers and non-gamers alike. Now you can finally see Ralph try to break from his bad guy persona without going to a movie theater. Disney announced today release dates for digital and physical copies of the film.
In an interesting twist, starting February 12, you can own a high definition digital copy in both 2D and 3D. Those who still want physical releases have to a wait a bit longer, until March 5. These sets include a 4-disc Blu-ray combo pack, 2-disc combo pack, DVD, SD digital, and on-demand release.
Will you pick up Wreck-It Ralph?


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Bill Piburn shares an original composition and discusses inspiration, non-root chords, passing tones, altered scale use, tonal shifts, chord substitution, chromatic bass lines and a Martin Taylor thumb technique
Click here to download a printable PDF of this arrangement. |
Chops: Intermediate Theory: Advanced Lesson Overview: • Learn the principles of quartal harmony. • Play three-, four-, and five-note quartal voicings. • Construct quartal harmony from E Mixolydian, E Dorian, and E Aeolian modes. |
Who is to say where inspiration comes from? Is it God, intellect, emotion, or life experience? I tend to believe all of the above. I do know that art will not live or grow in a bubble.
"Music comes from life. Many times you'll find that you learn more about music from life than from music." Mick Goodrick
We will now take a look into some of the harmonic devices I used in "Farewell Tour." The first four measures serve as an introduction. Measures one and two suggest the sound of Cm7 to C7 to Dm7/A which then moves into Dm7b5/A. Measure three opens with a Cm/G chord that leads into a couple of rootless altered dominant chords. Leaving out the root helps the ear focus on the altered notes. It is important however to include the 3rd and b7th. The order of the intervals (3–b7–#9–b13) moves down a whole step from A7#5 to G7#5. I almost always leave the root out of altered dominant chords. This harmonic device opens the door to many possibilities.
As we move into the A section the progression moves from C7–Db7– Em11. The Em11 in measure six functions as a C6/9. It's interesting that if the chord is functioning in the key of C it can be interpreted a few ways. This is where the possibilities with rootless chords multiply.
A bass line theme that uses an F# passing note occurs in measures 6, 10, 22, 46, and 50. Other half-step passing tones in the bass happen in measures 9, 12, 16, 24, 28, 40, and 48. Passing tones in the bass line are very common. Guitarists such as Joe Pass and Martin Taylor use this device in practically every tune they play. Generally, passing tones are found on the upbeats and lead to a chord or scale tone.
Speaking of Martin Taylor, I use a technique in the bass line in measure twelve that I picked up from listening to one of his albums. For the first two notes in the measure I use the top of the thumbnail and move in one continuous motion across the lowest two strings. Martin uses a similar technique when playing triplets on the bass strings. He begins with a downstroke on the first note of the triplet and then plays the remaining two notes with the top of his thumbnail. This technique really gives you that upright bass sound. Hey, if you are going steal, steal from the best!
The B section of the tune starts at measure thirteen. I am using the altered dominant scale for the melodic content in the first two measures. In this case, the scale is G super locrian (G–Ab–Bb–Cb–Db–Eb–F). Another way to imagine this scale is to play a melodic minor scale based on a note a half step above the root. In this case, since we want the G Super Locrian scale, we will use Ab melodic minor. If we look at the function of each note in the key of G we end up with: R–b9–#9–3–b5–#5–b7. Wow! That pretty much covers it.
A tonal shift to Eb major happens momentarily in measures 17, 18, and the first part of 19. One of my favorite moments happens when on beat three where Ebmaj7 moves into A13. After analyzing this I realized that the motion was like moving from Ebmaj7 to Eb7 except using an A bass. This becomes A7, which is the tritone substitution for Eb7. Very cool!
The A section repeats at measure 21 with a variation on the last four measures. A nice chord substitution happens when Db7#9 takes the place of C7 at the beginning of the phrase. In measure 25 notice the rootless D7b9 moving to Db7b9 to C6/9/E to Eb9 to D. This creates a smooth five-note chromatic bassline. The surprising harmony has more impact because it's anticipated ahead of the beat. It also sets up chromatic motion as it moves into D7#5 which serves as a substitution for the original Db7.
The solo begins at measure 29. At times, it is difficult to define melodic line movement with a chord symbol. Many times a chord is suggested however it is not defined with great enough clarity that an argument could not be made for more than one set of chords. This is case for the first two measures of the solo. I will say that when I played it I was only thinking of line movement. Now that I look at it my first impression is C to a rootless Bbm/Db to a D7 alt. (no 3rd) to D# major using only the root and third. Well, that is a mind full! Again, everything I play is based on line movement. Although I think of chords I really just hear them as part of the musical line. The second B section is also based around the super locrian scale however with some melodic variation. The song wraps up with another A section and an ending lick.
In conclusion and in danger of repeating myself, I stress using your ear. There is a time to analyze and a time to trust what you hear. I assure you that what you hear will grow as you play and listen to music with unfamiliar harmony.
Download an mp3 of the arrangement - Download a PDF of the arrangement


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André Kertész
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André Kertész (born July 2, 1894, Budapest [Hungary]—died September 28, 1985, New York, New York, U.S.) Hungarian-born American photographer known for his lyrical and formally rigorous pictures of everyday life. One of the most-inventive photographers of the 20th century, Kertész set the standard for the use of the handheld camera, created a highly autobiographical body of work, and developed a distinctive visual language.
Kertész began photographing in 1912, the same year he took a job as a clerk at the Giro Bank of the Budapest Stock Exchange. During World War I he served in the Austro-Hungarian army. He saw action and continued taking pictures on the Eastern Front, where he was severely wounded. In 1918 he returned to work at the bank, photographing in his spare time.
Because of a lack of opportunities in Hungary, Kertész moved to Paris in 1925 to work as a freelance photographer. His poetic images of Paris street life, often taken from high vantage points, involve unexpected juxtapositions and make frequent use of reflections and shadows. In 1927 Kertész had a well-received show at the Au Sacre du Printemps Gallery in Paris. The following year he participated in the influential First Independent Salon of Photography. His photographs, notable for their blend of a romantic sensibility with modernist attitudes, were frequently cited by critics of the 1920s and '30s as proof that photography could be considered a fine art.
Apart from his images of everyday life, Kertész took portraits of luminaries such as Russian filmmaker Sergey Eisenstein, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, French writer Colette, Belorussian French artist Marc Chagall, French painter Fernand Léger, American sculptor Alexander Calder, and Romanian-born French writer Tristan Tzara. Some of those portraits were made on assignment for the trailblazing French picture magazine Vu (published 1928–40). Kertész worked as a lead photographer for Vu from its launch until 1936. Among his picture essays were those about a Trappist abbey, the tradespeople of Paris, Lorraine, Burgundy, and other regions of France. He also contributed to Art et Médecine and many other European periodicals.
In 1928 Kertész bought a Leica, a small handheld camera that gave him the ability to move more freely within any environment. Although he frequently staked out settings and patiently awaited the photographic moment, he is considered a pioneering street photographer, a label that implies quickly sizing up and capturing an unfolding situation. Street photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brassaï, to whom Kertész taught photography, cited him as an important influence. He also mentored Hungarian-born American photojournalist Robert Capa.
Kertész married Hungarian-born painter Rozsa Klein in 1928. He taught her photography, and she soon became a respected photographic portraitist known as Rogi André. In 1932 the couple divorced. The following year Kertész married another Hungarian, Erzsébet (Elizabeth) Salamon (also known as Erzsébet, or Elizabeth, Saly).
Also in 1933 the humorous, often risqué magazine Le Sourire commissioned from Kertész a series of nude photographs using distorting mirrors. In the end, he made more than 200 Distortions. He continued to use distorting mirrors in his photography intermittently for the next half century. His first book, Enfants (1933; "Children") was followed by Paris Vu par André Kertész (1934; "Paris Seen by André Kertész") and Nos Amies les Bêtes (1936; "Our Friends the Animals").
Kertész traveled to New York City in 1936 on a one-year contract with the Keystone Press Agency. Unhappy with the studio fashion work he was assigned and with life in New York, he soon broke his contract, though financial difficulties and World War II prevented his return to Europe. In 1944 he became a U.S. citizen.
From 1936 to 1947 Kertész worked as a freelance photographer for American magazines, including Look, Coronet, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, and Town and Country. However, some American editors considered his images too poetic and, therefore, unsuitable for their story and layout ideas. In 1947 he signed an exclusive contract with Condé Nast publications, becoming a staff photographer for House and Garden under art editor Alexander Liberman. Although Kertész was well paid, the steady work left him frustrated, in part because it left him little time to pursue his personal projects.
He quit Condé Nast in 1962 and soon achieved the public notice and favourable critical reception that had eluded him since his move to the U.S. A solo exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art (1964–65), a Guggenheim fellowship (1974), and a retrospective at the Pompidou Centre in Paris (1977–78) were among the honours that ensued. During the 1970s his images, offered by New York's Light Gallery in limited-edition portfolios, helped launch the photography market for private collectors.
Kertész continued to make expressive and deeply personal images. He often photographed with a telephoto lens from his apartment overlooking Washington Square. Beginning in 1978, he used a Polaroid camera to create a major series that combined still life with views from his windows and paid homage to his wife, who had died in 1977.
Kertész had major exhibitions at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (1980), the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1983), and the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires (both 1985). Posthumous exhibitions of his work include traveling retrospectives organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2005), and the Jeu de Paume, Paris (2010). His books include On Reading (1971), André Kertész: Sixty Years of Photography, 1912–1972 (1972), J'aime Paris: Photographs Since the Twenties (1974), and Kertész on Kertész: A Self-Portrait (1985).
Kertész died at age 91 after one of the longest and most-prolific careers in photography. He took perhaps more iconic photographs than any other modern photographer. His instantly recognizable images include Underwater Swimmer (1917), Wandering Violinist (1921), Chez Mondrian (1926), Satiric Dancer (1926), Fork (1928), Meudon (1928), Clock of the Académie Française (1929), Washington Square (1954), and Martinique (1972).


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Praise be to Allah.
Al-hamdu lillah (praise be to Allah). This situation about which this sister is asking is a common one and occurs often as a result of a clash of desires between parents and their daughter. It could be for a benefit or interest the mother or father sees and the young woman doesnt, and each regards the issue from a different perspective or with a particular consideration. And perhaps the opinion of the parents is the appropriate and correct one as a result of their prior trials and longer experience in life, and perhaps the woman sometimes looks to the appearance of the groom more than anything else, whereas the parents may look to other considerations, such as his family status, or his long-term career or employment. Of course none of this means that the womans opinion isnt sometimes more correct and preferable, particularly when the opinion of the parents stems from a benefit they may realize if the marriage is accomplished, and they do not actually make the priority their daughter who is the most important thing in this issue. And while being vigilant in advising you of the importance of obeying ones parents and struggling with oneself to realize their wishes and desires and giving their opinion the priority, the point must clearly be made that the following two hadeeth from the Prophet (peace be upon him) must be abided by and carried out, as within them are the complete answer to your question and questions from others in similar situations:The first hadeeth:
If he whose character and deen (practice of religion) pleases you, approaches you in marriage, then marry him, for if you dont, their will be fitna in the land and vast corruption. (Tirmidhi and others, see Sunan Tirmidhi #1085 and it is hassan (reliable) as per Sahih ul-Jaami #270). (fitna here can be understood to refer to the temptation for fornication, enmity and the cutting off of relations among the people and relatives, and the spreading of hatred)
The second:
Buraida (may Allah be pleased with him) said that a young woman came to the Prophet (peace be upon him) and said, My father married me to his brothers son (i.e. her cousin) in order to raise his standing among the people, so the Prophet (peace be upon him) put the matter in her hands (i.e. asserted that the validity of the marriage is conditioned on her approval and negated by her refusal). So she said, I authorize and endorse what he has done but I wanted women to know that fathers cannot force their will in these matters.
And it was narrated by NisaaI via Abdullah ibn Buraida via Aaisha that a young woman came to her and said, My father married me to his brothers son in order to raise his standing among the people and I am unwilling (to agree to it), so she said, Sit until the Prophet (peace be upon him) comes. So the Prophet (peace be upon him) came and she informed him of the situation, so he sent for her father and invited him (over) and asserted that the matter is in the brides hands. So she said, Oh Prophet of Allah I have authorized and endorsed what my father has done, but I wanted to know if women had a say in the matter or not. (Sunan al-NisaaI, Kitaab al-Nikaah min Sunanihi and it is sahih).
I ask Allah for you success and guidance to that in which there is blessings for you and your family, and may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon our Prophet Muhammad .


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"For his outstanding contributions to the field of spectroscopy in strongly corrrelated electron systems leading to elucidation of many-body physics."
Background:Tom Timusk did his undergraduate work at the University of Toronto in 1957 and his Ph.D. at Cornell in 1961. After postdoctoral work in Frankfurt, Germany and at the University of Illinois, he joined the physics department at McMaster in 1965. He has spent research leaves at Cornell, Berkeley, University of Florida, Toronto and AT&T Bell Laboratories. He has held a Sloan Fellowship and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Royal Society of Canada. He is an associate of the Canadian Institute of Research program in superconductivity. In 2000 he received the Canadian Association Medal of Achievement in Physics and the Brockhouse Medal for Condensed Matter and Materials Physics.
Using infrared radiation he has worked on the spectra of defects in alkali halides, on quasi-crystals, the exciton gas and electron-hole fluid in semiconductors, the cosmic microwave background radiation and the propagation of radiation in insulating materials, such as fiber glass and goose down.
His current work is in the area of exotic superconductors such as the organics, the heavy Fermions, and the cuprates where, most recently, he has been interested in the interplay between the pseudogap and the quantum critical behaviour as the level of oxygen doping changes.
Duncan Steel (Chair), Lu J Sham, Paul Richards, Al Sievers, David Awschalom


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East End press groups to present Bishop/Altschuler debates
Times/Review Newsgroup is teaming up with The Press News Group of Southampton to co-sponsor a pair of 90-minute debates between Congressman Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) and Republican challenger Randy Altschuler of St. James, the two news organizations announced this week.
The first debate will be hosted by Times/Review at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 27, at Vail-Leavitt Music Hall in Riverhead. Suffolk Times editor Tim Kelly will moderate that debate, which will be broadcast live on riverheadnewsreview.com.
The first 45 minutes of the debate will focus specifically on health care reform, Mr. Kelly said, and then be opened to general questions.
The second debate is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 15, at Bridgehampton School. The first 45 minutes of that debate will focus on jobs and the economy.
The Bridgehampton debate will be moderated by Joe Shaw, executive editor for The Press News Group, publishers of the Southampton Press, Southampton Press Western Edition and Easthampton Press newspapers, as well as 27east.com.
"We're very excited to be working together to give the public more than sound bites to make a decision in this important race," Mr. Shaw said of the partnership with Times/Review. "Our goal is to allow the candidates to more fully explore the complicated issues and give voters an opportunity to cast an informed vote."
Both debates will be free and open to the public.
Vail-Leavitt will seat up to 250 people on a first-come, first-served basis. Audience members will have an opportunity to submit questions for the candidates at both debates.
"With so much at stake, it's impossible to overstate the importance of this race," Mr. Kelly said. "We're proud to be teaming up with our South Fork counterparts, The Press News Group, to bring the candidates and the issues to light."


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I would like to reverse the comment pagination numbers so that the newest comments show on page 1 instead of the last page. I did an array_reverse for the comments_array and set the Wordpress Discussion Settings to first page displayed by default - everything works fine except when someone leaves a comment it doesn't take in consideration the array_reverse and it takes the user to the link where the comment would be without the array reverse and obviously the comment is not there.
I noticed that the redirect comes from wp-comments-post.php
$location = empty($_POST['redirect_to']) ? get_comment_link($comment_id) : $_POST['redirect_to'] . '#comment-' . $comment_id;
Is there a way to get the correct redirect link after a comment is submitted? Or is there a simpler way to get the comment pagination numbers reversed? Thanks in advance!


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Daily Readings for Thursday, May 9, 2024
- Morning Psalms 47; 147:12-20
- First Reading Daniel 7:9-14
- Second Reading Hebrews 2:5-18
- Gospel Reading Matthew 28:16-20
- Evening Psalms 68; 113
Morning Psalm 47
1 Clap your hands, all you peoples;
shout to God with loud songs of joy.
2 For the LORD, the Most High, is awesome,
a great king over all the earth.
3 He subdued peoples under us,
and nations under our feet.
4 He chose our heritage for us,
the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
5 God has gone up with a shout,
the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
7 For God is the king of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm.
8 God is king over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.
9 The princes of the peoples gather
as the people of the God of Abraham.
For the shields of the earth belong to God;
he is highly exalted.
Morning Psalm 147:12-20
12 Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!
Praise your God, O Zion!
13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates;
he blesses your children within you.
14 He grants peace within your borders;
he fills you with the finest of wheat.
15 He sends out his command to the earth;
his word runs swiftly.
16 He gives snow like wool;
he scatters frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down hail like crumbs —
who can stand before his cold?
18 He sends out his word, and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.
19 He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the Lord!
First Reading Daniel 7:9-14
9As I watched, thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne, his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire. 10A stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence. A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him. The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. 11I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking. And as I watched, the beast was put to death, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. 12As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. 13As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. 14To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.
Second Reading Hebrews 2:5-18
5Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6But someone has testified somewhere, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? 7You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, 8subjecting all things under their feet." Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, 12saying, "I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you." 13And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again, "Here am I and the children whom God has given me."
14Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. 16For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham. 17Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. 18Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.
Gospel Reading Matthew 28:16-20
16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Evening Psalm 68
1 Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered;
let those who hate him flee before him.
2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away;
as wax melts before the fire,
let the wicked perish before God.
3 But let the righteous be joyful;
let them exult before God;
let them be jubilant with joy.
4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds —
his name is the LORD —
be exultant before him.
5 Father of orphans and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
6 God gives the desolate a home to live in;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
but the rebellious live in a parched land.
7 O God, when you went out before your people,
when you marched through the wilderness, Selah
8 the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain
at the presence of God, the God of Sinai,
at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
9 Rain in abundance, O God, you showered abroad;
you restored your heritage when it languished;
10 your flock found a dwelling in it;
in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
11 The Lord gives the command;
great is the company of those who bore the tidings
12 "The kings of the armies, they flee, they flee!"
The women at home divide the spoil,
13 though they stay among the sheepfolds —
the wings of a dove covered with silver,
its pinions with green gold.
14 When the Almighty scattered kings there,
snow fell on Zalmon.
15 O mighty mountain, mountain of Bashan;
O many-peaked mountain, mountain of Bashan!
16 Why do you look with envy, O many-peaked mountain,
at the mount that God desired for his abode,
where the LORD will reside for ever?
17 With mighty chariotry, twice ten thousand,
thousands upon thousands,
the Lord came from Sinai into the holy place.
18 You ascended the high mount,
leading captives in your train
and receiving gifts from people,
even from those who rebel against the LORD God's abiding there.
19 Blessed be the Lord,
who daily bears us up;
God is our salvation. Selah
20 Our God is a God of salvation,
and to GOD, the Lord, belongs escape from death.
21 But God will shatter the heads of his enemies,
the hairy crown of those who walk in their guilty ways.
22 The Lord said,
"I will bring them back from Bashan,
I will bring them back from the depths of the sea,
23 so that you may bathe your feet in blood,
so that the tongues of your dogs may have their share from the foe."
24 Your solemn processions are seen, O God,
the processions of my God, my King, into the sanctuary —
25 the singers in front, the musicians last,
between them girls playing tambourines:
26 "Bless God in the great congregation,
the LORD, O you who are of Israel's fountain!"
27 There is Benjamin, the least of them, in the lead,
the princes of Judah in a body,
the princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali.
28 Summon your might, O God;
show your strength, O God, as you have done for us before.
29 Because of your temple at Jerusalem
kings bear gifts to you.
30 Rebuke the wild animals that live among the reeds,
the herd of bulls with the calves of the peoples.
Trample under foot those who lust after tribute;
scatter the peoples who delight in war.
31 Let bronze be brought from Egypt;
let Ethiopia hasten to stretch out its hands to God.
32 Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth;
sing praises to the Lord, Selah
33 O rider in the heavens, the ancient heavens;
listen, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.
34 Ascribe power to God,
whose majesty is over Israel;
and whose power is in the skies.
35 Awesome is God in his sanctuary,
the God of Israel;
he gives power and strength to his people.
Blessed be God!
Evening Psalm 113
1 Praise the LORD!
Praise, O servants of the LORD;
praise the name of the LORD.
2 Blessed be the name of the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.
3 From the rising of the sun to its setting
the name of the LORD is to be praised.
4 The LORD is high above all nations,
and his glory above the heavens.
5 Who is like the LORD our God,
who is seated on high,
6 who looks far down
on the heavens and the earth?
7 He raises the poor from the dust,
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
8 to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.
9 He gives the barren woman a home,
making her the joyous mother of children.
Praise the LORD!


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Kefid 120tph granite crushing line in Zimbabwe
Material : Granite
Output size : 0-5mm、5-20mm、20-40mm
Feeding sizes : 300-400mm
Capacity: 120tph
Equipment: GZD960×3800 Vibration feeder、PE600×900 Jaw crusher、PF1214 Impact crusher、3YZS1860 Vibrating screen
Process Description
The granite aggregate with a size of 300-400mm is transported by GZD960×3800 vibrating feeder to PE600×900 jaw crusher for coarse crushing. The gravel aggregate with a particle size of 120mm enters the PF1214 impact crusher for finely crushed, the material less than 60mm after being finely chopped directly enters the 3YZS1860 vibrating screen for screening, while the material larger than 40mm and less than 60mm will enter the impact crusher again for secondary crushing, and the final output will be 0-5mm, 5-20mm, 20 -40mm of finished aggregate is used for local infrastructure construction.
Customer Reviews
The project is mainly used for the construction of local roads in Zimbabwe. Therefore, there are certain requirements for the grain size of sand aggregate. After customers compare several manufacturers, Kefid impact crusher with the strength and quality is selected as the main equipment. Not only can we meet the customer's requirements for stone size, but also have low cost and cost-effectiveness.
Papua New Guinea 250TPH Limestone Mobile Crushing Plant
Chile 120-150TPH River Stone Mobile Crushing Line
250tph river stone crushing line in Chile
200tph granite crushing line in Cameroon
250tph limestone crushing line in Kenya
250tph granite crushing line in South Africa
Kefid 120tph granite crushing line in Zimbabwe
400tph crushing plant in Guinea


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Results of the internal investigation conducted by Ukraine International Airlines confirmed that the crew of the Kyiv – Bangkok flight acted professionally and strictly complied to aviation safety regulations and requirements. Further investigation in consultation with the aircraft manufacturer representatives will be carried out to determine technical causes that led to the engine failure. After diversion to Kiev Boryspil International airport, all passengers continued their journey aboard another UIA aircraft.
Boeing 767-300ER UR-GEC aircraft that operated PS 271 Kyiv – Bangkok flight on July 29, 2019, departed from Kiev Boryspil International airport at 8:02 p.m. LT. While the aircraft was gaining height, the crew discerned rapid parameter changes of one of the engines. Upon analyzing the situation and revising the controlling documents, the crew made a decision to turn the engine off and return to departure airport, and, therefore, informed flight operations officers on diversion. At 8:22 p.m. the aircraft landed at Kiev Boryspil International airport. Due to heavy landing weight, the break gear temperature increased and, consequently, minor fumigation occurred. Passengers and crew were totally safe.
Passengers were transported back to Terminal D and, after the aircraft substitution, continued their journey to Bangkok. The aircraft departed from Kyiv at 2:08 a.m. on July 30 and landed in Bangkok at 3:30 p.m. LT on July 30.
"There is no proof against emergencies. However, our pilots undergo sophisticated training and are perfectly ready to take actions if need be," noted Igor Sosnovsky, UIA Vice President Operations. "Due to orchestrated efforts of the crew and airport services, we were able to quickly and efficiently settle the situation and carry passengers to their destination."
Ukraine International Airlines Press Service
Tel/fax: (044) 238 26 97,
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


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May 11, 1974 - Dayton Daily News: RPCVs remember Peace Corps Volunteer Bethanne Bahler who died while serving in Jamaica in May, 1974
Peace Corps Online
Peace Corps Jamaica
The Peace Corps in Jamaica
: May 11, 1974 - Dayton Daily News: RPCVs remember Peace Corps Volunteer Bethanne Bahler who died while serving in Jamaica in May, 1974
Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-121-209.balt.east.verizon.net - 188.8.131.52)
Friday, December 19, 2003 - 10:20 am
Edit Post
RPCVs remember Peace Corps Volunteer Bethanne Bahler who died while serving in Jamaica in May, 1974
Bethanne Bahler served in Jamaica and died in May, 1974. The cause of death was deemed to be Accident-drowning. Returned Volunteers remember Bethanne Bahler and leave their condolences to family and friends. Read the obituary and if you knew Bethanne Bahler leave your memories and remembrances below at:
Bethanne Bahler served in Jamaica and died in May, 1974.
This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.
Bethanne Bahler served in Jamaica and died in May, 1974.
The cause of death was deemed to be Accident-drowning.
Bethanne Bahler (F)
Died: 05/11/74
Serving in: Jamaica
Died in: Jamaica
Cause of Death: asphyxiation: drowning
Cause of death category: accident-drowning
Notes: PCV slipped on rocks while crossing cascade. PCV was swimming alone.
For the Peace Corps Fallen
Read and comment on this article written by Swaziland RPCV Jack Conrad on the Memorial Service for the 254 Peace Corps Volunteers who have died in service held at Arlington Cemetery on June 23, 2002 at:
For the Peace Corps Fallen
This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.
For the Peace Corps Fallen
This past Sunday was sunny and steamy hot in Washington, D.C. In the morning, hundreds of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers assembled beside the Lincoln Memorial. There they distributed among themselves flags from each of the countries in which the Peace Corps has served - 135 in all. They then marched, led by the flag bearers, in reverent tribute across the Potomac River to Arlington National Cemetery. At the cemetery they mounted the large hill before them, veering to the right in order to pay their respects to the agency's founder, at the grave of President John F. Kennedy. Then they continued on to the top of the hill and the amphitheater beside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That's where the remembrance ceremony began.
A quartet of Washington, D.C. police officers, called "Prophecy," started the commemoration with gospel music. Then Pat Reilly, President of the National Peace Corps Association Board, stood at the podium, recalling her first encounter with the Peace Corps ("You can't send me to Sierra Leone. I don't speak Spanish! Besides, I wanted to go to Africa!"). Following the assembled volunteers' singing of America the Beautiful, a Rabbi and an Imam shared their prayers with the audience, prayers for the work of the Peace Corps, prayers for Peace. Pat Reilly returned to the stage to share a poem dedicated to those volunteers who gave their lives during their service. Presented below, it packed a punch. Then an unscheduled guest took the stage, newly confirmed Peace Corps Director, Gaddy Vasquez. He shared his brief remarks about the organization, its heightened importance, and again, reverence for those who never returned from their assignments - 254 individuals in all. He disclosed that he thinks about them every day---upon entering and leaving the Peace Corps Office---as there is a large panel with the names of the departed just beside the entrance ...
Next Congressman Christopher Shays from Connecticut (RPCV, Fiji) took the stage, striking just the right note when he asserted that "We walked their paths, rode their buses, bathed in their pools and spoke their languages ... We came home different and with a greater appreciation of our country."
A few other speakers followed, Michelle Forman, the national teacher of the year (RPCV, Nepal), Harris Wofford, instrumental in the founding of the Peace Corps, later a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, and more recently a Clinton Administration task force member, and lastly the coordinator of the conference, Cori Welbourn Bassett (RPCV, Sri Lanka).
The ceremony ended with a final procession of the flags ...
I was honored to have the chance to depart the amphitheater carrying the flag of Swaziland. As I did, I thought about the five Swaziland PCVs who never returned from their service alive.
(1) Frederick A. Schwartz (1970)
(2) Janis Hyatt (1981)
(3) Brenda Crawford (1988)
(4) Juanita Quiton (1988)
(5) Laura Stedman (1996)
I *believe* I met Brenda and Juanita before I left Swaziland in 1987. They would have been among the latest trainees. I heard later, when I was teaching in West Africa in '88, that they had died in an auto accident, while traveling from Johannesburg to Zimbabwe, somewhere on the road between the two.
It would be interesting to hear about the personalities of these five volunteers and more about the circumstances behind their deaths. Did any of you know them?
For the Peace Corps Fallen
We who left you
Before our time
May return if you reach back
And carry a world
With us
Within you.
Let our monument
Be the mark you make
In the life you lead of peace and purpose.
Do, so that we may do
Act, so that we may act
Live, so that we may live
Again, through you.
---by Donald Maclean
Salani kahle, Bonkhosi,
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Wednesday, November 29, 2006
instant (almost) gratification projects
Soft trees.
Free download here, thanks to Stephanie.
I want to make a hundred of these little things. So quick and easy and CUTE!
Zipper pouch.
I am proud to say that I now have successfully sewn a zipper. First time ever. It was nice to accomplish this. (I had to get out the sewing machine manual to determine which foot was the zipper foot.) This tutorial was infinitely helpful for making the pouch. Thanks Anna!
*does posting get easier? it took me what felt like forever to post this....any tips? please?
3 comments:
Ok, those Christmas trees are adorable!!! What a wonderful way to use up scraps :-) Sounds like you had a great day!!
amy jo - 9:36 PM
yes, i agree, those trees are too cute!!! gonna have to give it a go for sure! thx for th link! and hmmm, does posting get easier?! well, i have been doing it for a year and it wasnt until april/may that things started picking up.... i had my blog for only illustrations at first but then i was never posting... when i decided to go ahead and ramble about life, other cool blogs and links, odds and ends, swaps, etc, is when not only did i start posting more, but got more readers... this month the goal was to post daily and that was hard but what i do is this: if i think of a good post throughout the day, i write it down for a future post.... that helps.... i have been told i was verbose :( but i admit i can ramble... its just a good way to journal thoughts and ideas and get others to know you and your personality....
hope that helped:D - 6:32 AM
- Clair said...
Okay, Amanda, cute trees...but does your family use them like the bunnies you made at Easter?


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Once upon a time, there were Bad Boys
Once upon a time, NBA players beat the crap out of each other. ESPN's "30 for 30: The Bad Boys" pleasantly reminded us of that. The two-hour, must-watch special highlighted the rise and fall of the Isiah Thomas-led, two-time champion Continue reading Once upon a time, there were Bad Boys


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I think it's important to have faith in people. To remember that no matter what our views are or where we come from. We all breathe the same air. This we all share in common and no matter what you say or do, this cannot be erased.
So, to me this talk of suttas and rambling seemed to escape the fact that they really don't matter when confronted with the true facts of our "family" and that (in my opinion) there is no right or wrong, correct view, or incorrect view. There is only this Buddha sitting infront of you on the bus or beside you at work. The Buddha may have an opinion and you might have an opinion, but really you should both just shut up sometimes.
Or maybe I should shut up too.
Gassho Will


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Sushi Is Bad For Your Skin, but Smiling Is Good! Got It?
We spend so much time obsessing about what goes on our skin, and how to keep our complexions looking gorgeous with creams, serums, and treatments. But Dr. Harold Lancer, dermatologist to the stars and the creator of the superpopular Lancer skincare line, wants us to be as concerned with what we're putting into our bodies and how that shows up on our faces. With his new book Younger: The Breakthrough Anti-Aging Method For Radiant Skin hitting bookshelves, Lancer answered a few of our questions, and yes, smiling is actually good for your wrinkles. Read on to find out more.
POPSUGAR: How bad are processed foods for your skin?
Dr. Harold Lancer: Processed foods are usually heavy in refined carbs, artificial sweeteners, as well as traces of chemicals like pesticides and hormones, all of which are terrible for the skin and your general health. Refined carbs are the main culprit, though, causing the body's glucose levels to skyrocket, beginning a process called glycation, which breaks down collagen and elastin in the skin.
PS: Diet fads — do these hurt your skin? Is there a best "fad" diet for your skin (e.g., Paleo, vegan, gluten-free, etc.)?
HL: Starting a diet because it is the new "fad" is never a good idea — you want to make gradual changes to your eating habits so you can stick with them, making permanent, healthy changes to your habits. Making these gradual changes can also help you avoid "weight cycling," essentially diets that are high in lean protein and fresh greens and low in carbohydrates and processed foods are the best for your skin and body.
PS: What is the perfect day of food for your skin?
HL: A perfect day of food would include a lean breakfast — think a green juice, a handful of almonds, and some fresh berries. A lunch with protein and greens, like a salad with grilled salmon, and a dinner that isn't too heavy, but still satisfying — a low-sodium, vegetable-based soup with grilled chicken. If you get hungry between meals, try snacking on whole, fresh foods, like an apple with organic almond butter.
PS: Why do you think sushi is bad for skin? Isn't fish considered great for skin (especially salmon)?
HL: While many types of fish are great for skin due to their high content of omega fatty acids, like salmon, sushi can be detrimental to the skin because it is often preserved with large quantities of salt, and rolls are usually served with large amounts of white rice. Sodium (salt) and high-glycemic rice are skin saboteurs. Both take moisture and circulation away from the epidermis, leading to dull, dry skin that ages more quickly.
PS: What is your stance on dairy's effect on the skin?
HL: Dairy is heavy in two things that negatively impact the skin: sugar and yeast. While small amounts of dairy aren't detrimental (i.e., eating organic, probiotic Greek yogurt once in a while), regular consumption of dairy can lead to increased acne breakouts and dull skin.
PS: Besides food, what are the other most important factors in maintaining great skin?
HL: People laugh when I say this, but happiness is a crucial factor in having radiant skin. Your mental state, self-image, and confidence levels are projected through your skin. Eliminating unnecessary stress from your life and focusing on positive habits (especially physical hobbies like yoga, meditation, and stretching) will show in your visage.
PS: What's one thing we could all do today to look younger?
HL: Drink a green juice and go for a walk outdoors! (Wearing sunscreen, of course). Light exercise, fresh vitamins, and natural vitamin D will boost your mood levels and increase circulation. Maintain this habit, and you'll be looking younger in no time!


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Can you believe the gall of this grafter Jeff Minick?
By Joe Ecclesia
My name is Joe Ecclesia, and I have a bone the size of an elephant's thigh to pick with one of your reviewers, Jeff Minick.
For 12 years or so, I have known Mr. Minick. We've shared many meals, spilled some wine together, had some laughs.
Frequently, we have debated politics and religion late into the night, shooting the breeze over dozens of topics, particularly those relating to the Catholic Church. During our years of friendship, when Minick became discouraged by public affairs or by personal difficulties — the guy, by the way, is a walking disaster when it comes to dating women — I was there to pick him up, dust him off, and shove him back into the fray.
So how does this man repay my kindness? By thieving my words and thoughts. Too dumb to come up with his own ideas, he had to filch mine. After twisting my innocent remarks like pretzels, Minick decked them out in satirical garb, and then published these plagiaries as essays in magazines. Even worse, he has now made public a collection of these and other essays in a book titled Learning As I Go; A Medley of Essays and Letters, Some Earnest, Some Satirical, Containing Thoughts and Conjectures on Such Diverse Topics as the Catholic Church, the Public Square, the Culture Wars, Relationships Between Men and Women, Writers, Books, and Education, All Seasoned with the Spices and Condiments of Personal Experience. (Ask yourself: what kind of mind conjures up such pretentious bloviation in our age of twitter and tweet?)
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But here's the kicker: this guy Minick signs my name on some of the articles in his book. My NAME! The sheer gall of this grafter makes me want to spit. I'm telling you, if this scalawag had more than two nickels to rub together, I'd sue him for identity theft.
Certainly his books won't win him any money. The novel he published last summer, Amanda Bell, the story of a young woman who gets smashed up by life and seeks redemption in Asheville, North Carolina, sold some copies, admittedly, and continues to sell. (Writing a story about a young woman is another instance of Minick's lunatic arrogance. Why? Because Minick is old. I mean, I'm talking wrinkles and grey hair. What does Methuselah know about chicks?)
Anyway, back to Learning As I Go. This book won't fly. To begin with, who's going to buy a bunch of essays that magazines and newspapers have already published? Who reads essays anyway? The certainty of Minick's crash-and-burn is good news for me, because it means no one will identify me with the book, but come on. Essays? This guy has his head stuck so deep in the sand that the crabs are renting out rooms in his ears.
Worse, Learning As I Go slings mud at an army of potential readers. Minick claims to have a lover's quarrel with the Catholic Church, but if I was the Church — and believe you me, buddy, I am as Catholic as the Pope on Easter — I'd slap this guy down so fast his head would spin. The Church has enough troubles without quibblers like Minick jumping all over it. Back in the day, the authorities would have burned this guy at the stake, and the rest of us would have brought weenies and marshmallows.
Nor does Minick stop there. He ridicules progressives. He thinks conservatives are grumps. He presents a long article on what he calls "crazy ladies," about bitter women over 50, which with any luck may send a few enraged harridans after him with their carving knives. He pokes fun at Islam by writing about "burka babes." (Dare we hope that some imam may issue a fatwa against this gadfly?) He plunks down an article about how weird Asheville is, but then tells us how much he loves living near its downtown. How weird is that?
Minick's exhortations to young people are particularly impertinent. He throws out advice like a politician making promises, counseling them on everything from doing well in school to becoming real adults. He writes them letters, taking on the name of Samuel Cavanaugh, no doubt another poor slob whose identity Minick has stolen. In one of these letters he has the audacity to instruct young people about dating. The sheer temerity of this old fart attempting to sway innocent teens is breathtaking.
Then there are Minick's essays on virtues like duty and honor. He mouths the usual pieties about character and right living, but the man is a hypocrite. Reading him, or even knowing him, you might think him a blend of Stonewall Jackson, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Apostle Paul, but in truth he's prone to so many bad habits that I must leave even a listing of his vices to your imagination. There simply isn't enough space here to record them all.
I will concede that Minick writes well enough. After all, various editors took his work and even paid him for his daft observations. I will also concede that his writing brings forth a guffaw or two. Several readers — no doubt the same drooling nabobs who would roar at the sight of an old lady falling down a staircase — have reported laughing aloud at his words. Other readers — those intellectual giants who take their news from the National Enquirer while standing in the checkout line at WalMart — have informed me that some of his insights impressed them.
Buy Minick's book at Amazon if you wish. Go to the signings he has scheduled in the area. Look, if you must, at his Facebook blog on www.minickonline.com. Do as you please. Just don't say you haven't been warned.
(Despite his apparent animosity, we have it on good authority that Joe Ecclesia remains a friend of Jeff Minick and will continue to visit with him in the future).


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When a hydrant is opened, there will always be temporary incidences of discolored water containing fine sediment particles. There is no health hazard associated with this discolored water. It is safe to drink and continues to meet all federal and state drinking water standards. Allow a few minutes but up to 4 hours for discoloration to dissipate. If the discoloration persists for more than 24 hours, please contact our Water Treatment Plant at 931-553-2440.
No, Fire Departments are required to flush hydrants when they are testing them to ensure adequate flow and pressure is available.
The Water Department flushes throughout the year so that the water does not stagnate in less active parts of the water distribution system. Clarksville Fire and Rescue flushes all hydrants within city limits during the spring beginning in April.
Again, the largest complaint during and just after hydrant flushing is discolored water. Here's what you should do if hydrant flushing is taking place in your neighborhood:


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From what I read, those of you on the opposite side of the country are reveling in the season's first artichokes, asparagus and favas. You're gushing over rhubarb and your new favorite way to cook it. You're rejoicing over how good in-season strawberries taste when you've been deprived of them for the better part of a year.
Please stop.
I am small and petty and the Greenmarket is so devoid of anything but root vegetables — and also vegetables that grow in the ground — would you like some potatoes? We have crates and crates; I'm incapable of being happy for you. I was so eager to believe that I'd find anything but the same old things that have been out for the last four months when I was at the market this weekend that I rushed at a sign that said "Apricots and Nectarines" even though I knew it would have been impossible that the crate could have contained them, only to find that it had been scrawled on the back of the announcement of more "Cold Storage Apples". (Sorry kid, looks like another week of applesauce for you!)
This recipe is for the rest of us, those with cherries and berries and citrus and stone fruits, but only the kinds that come in jars that were vacuum-sealed in warmer times. It comes from David Lebovitz's new compilation of his best recipes, Ready for Dessert. This book is the perfect Starter Lebovitz, if you ask me; for those of you who've heard about him or read his blog and laughed at his jokes and comments but didn't know which of his cookbooks to buy first. With this, he's retested everything, added weights and pretty pretty photographs so you get a little taste of everything he does well without having to clear out an entire bookshelf to accommodate his awesomeness. (Though he'd like me to let you know that he does not mind one bit if you do that too.)
Like this jam tart. It doesn't expect that you will have a very specific kind of fruit with a short growing season in your kitchen right now and it doesn't have any preconceived notion that you'll be making your own jam. (Though good on ye if you do, you know?) It knows you probably don't feel like busting out a rolling pin yet it guides you through making a gorgeous tart without one. But most of all, it understands that while theoretically this tart is a dessert, or maybe something you'd serve at tea, realistically, you'll probably cut yourself a wedge for breakfast and plans for this by making it heartier (with cornmeal), cakier (with baking powder) and simpler (like jam on toast, but so much better).
One year ago: Simple Potato Gratin
Two years ago: Whole Wheat Apple Muffins
Three years ago: Gnocchi with a Grater
Easy Jam Tart
Adapted from Ready for Dessert
Of course, I couldn't resist tinkering with the recipe a little. I made the dough in the food processor, because I already had it down and the Kitchen Aid seemed impossibly far away (on top of the fridge). I used the egg white leftover from the crust to make a shiny glaze for the tart. I used less jam than I was supposed to, because I ran out and was too lazy to get more and too apprehensive to mix jams; I liked this lesser amount in the end. Because my tart stuck to the pan just a little, I'm suggesting that you butter your tart mold. Finally, I approached the top crust differently than suggested. Rather than using thicker "coins" of dough, I cut them super-thin and overlapped them to create a pretty lid. Because pretty counts. I am sure Mr. Lebovitz will approve.
1 1/2 cups (210 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (70 grams) stone-ground cornmeal or polenta
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons (4 1/2 ounces or 130 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg, whole
1 large egg, separated
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
1 1/3 to 1 3/4 cups (450 grams) jam (see Note above; I used the smaller amount) or marmalade
2 tablespoons (30 grams) coarse-crystal or granulated sugar
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or in a food processor, mix the butter and 1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar together until smooth. Add the egg, egg yolk (keep the egg white from the second egg on hand for later) and almond extract and beat until combined. Gradually add the flour mixture and mix until the dough just comes together.
Transfer about one-third of the dough to a lightly floured counter and shape it into a log about 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter. Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it until needed. (As always, I was in a rush and put this in the freezer.)
Transfer the remaining dough to a buttered 9-inch (23-cm) tart pan with a removable bottom or a 9-inch (23-cm) springform pan. Using your hands, press the dough evenly into the bottom. If using a tart pan, press the dough up the sides to the rim of the pan and set the tart pan on a baking sheet. If using a springform pan, press the dough about 3/4-inch (2-cm) up the sides of the pan. Refrigerate the dough-lined pan until firm, at least one hour. (Again, I used the freezer and it was firm in 30 minutes. I am impatient.)
Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Spread the jam or marmalade evenly over the dough in the pan. Cut the chilled dough into very thin discs with a sharp paring knife. Arrange them slightly overlapped in concentric circles over the jam to form a top crust. Whisk the remaining egg white with a teaspoon of water until frothy; brush evenly over the tart lid and then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons (30 grams) coarse sugar. Bake until the top crust is golden brown, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely.
Do ahead: This tart keeps beautifully for up to 3 days if well-wrapped at room temperature. David says that it's pretty sturdy, so perfect to take along on a picnic.


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Char Roone Miller
George Mason University
The black silhouette of a well-dressed man falls through the opening credits of Mad Men, cascading through a cityscape displaying advertisements for the program's world of desire: cigarettes, booze, and women. As if it lacks even a pound of flesh, the silhouette lightly lands on a couch facing, like the viewer, the television and the products it advertises. Don Draper, the lead character, an advertising executive exceptionally skilled at selling fantasy, occupies the position of male desire that many characters in the program wish they could occupy, a perspective from which all the objects of his desire are easily attainable. Like the silhouette in the opening shot, Draper is mostly a shadow; the demands of family, friends, and his own body scarcely register. Nothing he desires costs him very much, yet, no one, it often appears, could ask for anything more.
(Note: this post contains Mad Men season 5 spoilers - ed.)
Draper embodies an inhuman lightness concerning human problems and responsibilities; he cheats on his wife, neglects his children, smokes continually, receives awards for the work of other people, drinks Old Fashions throughout the day, and denies knowing his brother. Rarely do commitments and promises weigh very heavily on this character. He remains the physical embodiment of the fantasy products he so skillfully sells.
Behind the office doors at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, doubts about this way of life and the costs of doing business pile up. Set in a center of American capitalism, Madison Avenue in New York City, Mad Men consistently portrays the lack of satisfaction faced by the Don Draper's of the world. Even Goldman, Sachs, the show seems to promise, can't sleep at night. Heavy casualties pile up in the wake of these very successful business people; the sacrifice of family, friends, and colleagues so that people like Draper can make and remake themselves in the interest of making money.
In the penultimate episode of this season Draper confronts a partner's appropriation of money from the agency. Lane Pryce, a junior partner confronted with large bills, forged Draper's signature on what he thought would be an early Christmas bonus. Pryce took the money in order to maintain family obligations; responsibilities generally neglected by Draper. The partners, however, give up their bonuses, leaving Pryce holding $7,500 in fraudulently appropriated funds. This crime could have played like so many others on the show, the kind of thing that white straight men easily forgive one another. When Draper discovers the fraud he fires Pryce, not so much for the money as for a loss of trust. The issue, as with many accounts of the current economic crisis—from American mortgages to Greek sovereign debt—isn't the money, but rather some perverse demand for trust. Bankers in Greece, for example, only stand to have their levels of profit lowered by forgiving and restructuring debt; they are not in danger of actually losing money. Draper and the firm will be fine; in fact Draper offers to cover the debt for Price as he asks for his resignation. In the final episode the firm begins to make so much money the partners don't know what to do with it all. Just as Draper, flush with enough wealth that he never has to worry about such things, fails to understand the monetary pressure on Pryce, banks and corporations demand trust from workers in an uneven exchange that treats the worker's demands for money and power as a morally suspect type of selfishness. Pryce, according to Draper, broke that trust and must pay the price.
Currently, European and American banks demand that Greece pay a similar price. Money piles up in Greek, German, and American banks, even as the extraction of that money costs so many people in Greece so much: unemployment at 20%, a health care system cut by 25%, thousands dropped from disability support, and major sources of public revenue sold to private companies. One symbol of the price of austerity is the 22% increase in suicide since 2009—including a 77-year-old retiree who shouted "I don't want to leave debts to my children," just before pulling the trigger in front of the Parliament building in Athens.
In Mad Men's first season, viewers learned that Don Draper was an identity assumed by Dick Whitman, when the real Draper was killed next to him in the Korean War. Draper is long dead; Whitman just acts like him. In effect, every time Whitman claims to be Draper, it's a crime mirrored to a minor degree by Pryce's forged check. The position that Draper occupies in order to condemn Pryce's crime was made possible by a much larger but essentially similar crime. In the case of Greece the debt that Greeks are being forced to pay was produced through, in many cases, criminal financial exploitation. Goldman Sachs, for example, helped Athens hide its debt by hiding loans as currency trades and by setting up financial arrangements to take over the profits from the airport of Athens. While this may have been criminal the demand for payment still weighs heavy. The ethical demands of money and capital take on a reality lacking in other social relationships (especially for the Draper's out there). Money's demands are high for Pryce: the body falling through space in this episode has more weight than a mere shadow; the weight of a hanging body, the weight of Pryce hanging himself behind his office door.
The dapper Draper resembles in style and privilege Christine Lagarde, the managing director of IMF, who the Guardian recently described as elegantly serene, even as the fiscal demands she forces on Greece inelegantly fractures Greek serenity. Ignoring the damage and violence that austerity inflicts on the bodies of living Greeks, she advocates for cuts in education of Greek children, cuts in medical support for the old, and the privatization of public resources. Sounding like Draper's response to Pryce, she points out the ways that ethics demands that Greeks pay their debts and that money be treated as the preeminent marker of fairness. Debts (to banks) must be paid. "Do you know what? As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax." German Prime Minister Merkel, The Wall Street Journal reported, also asserted the ethical status of paying debt at the cost of great suffering. "It is more important that the new (Greek) government stick to the commitments that Greece has made to the international community and its partners in the European Union." Forbes Magazine called the renegotiation of the debt by the Greeks 'disgraceful.' "Greece committed a grave injustice," Richard Salsman argues. "Contrary to convention, morals and money go hand-in-hand. The Latin root of 'credit' is trust."
Christine Lagarde |
The financial crisis is about money but it's never really about money. It's about the trust, faith, and belief that people put into money. It is about the production of value in the human body. Gilles Deleuze writes in Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation about novelist K. P. Moritz's description of the execution of criminals and the affect of their meat: "the horror of sacrifice he feels when he witnesses the execution of four men, . . . . 'thrown on the wheel' or over the balustrade; his certainty that in some strange way this event concerns all of us, that this discarded meat is we ourselves, and that the spectator is already in the spectacle, a 'mass of ambulating flesh'; hence his living idea that even animals are part of humanity, that we are all criminals, we are all cattle . . . . This is not an arrangement of man and beast, nor a resemblance; it is a deep identity, a zone of indiscernibility more profound than any sentimental identification: the man who suffers is a beast, the beast that suffers is a man." Pryce's flesh in Mad Men makes visual an affective response to the abstract suffering produced not by torture on the wheel in the name of a political sovereign but by the costs of money, credit, and debt to notions of popular sovereignty and equality. The "we" that is concerned here is a "we" made flesh in the body through which money circulates.
Even though it invites a response to the world in abstract, non-sensual, and immaterial terms, money is not an escape from life. Money moves in relation to life and bodies, establishing the value and meaning of matter. Money is one of the factors involved in our affective response to the universe, effecting how we see, what we see, and the meaning of those physical responses. Money receives its value in relation to flesh even as flesh, weighed in pounds or kilograms, priced in dollars, euros, yen, and pounds, receives its value in relation to money.


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The following analysis of the Oregon and Southwest Washington real estate market is provided by Windermere Real Estate Chief Economist Matthew Gardner. We hope that this information may assist you with making better-informed real estate decisions. For further information about the housing market in your area, please don't hesitate to contact your Windermere agent.
Oregon added 46,100 new jobs over the past 12 months, representing an annual growth rate of 2.4%. The current pace of job growth was a refreshing reversal from the slowing growth that had been in place since mid-2018.
The Southwest Washington market (Clark, Cowlitz, Skamania, and Klickitat counties) added 3,600 new jobs over the past 12 months, which represents an annual growth rate of 1.7%.
Oregon's unemployment rate was 4.1% in June, up from 4% a year ago. In Southwest Washington, the unemployment rate was 5%, up from 4.8% a year ago.
- Second-quarter home sales dropped 4.2% compared to the same period last year, with a total of 16,791 transactions.
- Sales rose fastest in Tillamook County, which saw a significant 15.5% increase over the second quarter of 2018. There were also solid increases in Yamhill and Josephine counties. Home sales fell most in the small Wasco, Linn, Coos, and Clatsop counties.
- Year-over-year sales rose in 6 counties, remained static in 1, and dropped in the other 19 counties contained in this report.
- Sales in the second quarter picked up from earlier in the year but are still lower than I would like to see. This is likely a function of limited inventory in concert with prices that continue to rise, suggesting that affordability may be slowing sales.
- The average home price in the region rose 2.8% year-over-year to $401,175 and was 8.5% higher than in the first quarter of this year.
- Wasco County led the market with the strongest annual price growth. Homes there sold for 18.8% more than they did a year ago. The greatest price declines were in the small counties of Clatsop and Tillamook. However, smaller markets can be prone to significant swings, so I'm not overly concerned at this time.
- All but two of the counties contained in this report experienced price growth compared to the second quarter of 2018. Two had lower prices than in the same period a year ago.
- The takeaway from this section is that price growth continues to moderate. Given very attractive mortgage rates, I expect prices to continue trending higher but at slower rates than the past several years.
- The average number of days it took to sell a home in the region rose by 2 days compared to the second quarter of 2018 but was down 20 days compared to the first quarter of 2018.
- The average time it took to sell a home last quarter was 70 days.
- Compared to a year ago, 10 counties saw the length of time it took to sell a home drop, 1 remained static, and 15 counties saw market time rise.
- Homes again sold the fastest in Washington (22 days) and Multnomah (30 days) counties.
The speedometer reflects the state of the region's real estate market using housing inventory, price gains, home sales, interest rates, and larger economic factors. Inventory levels, although rising, are still lower than I would like to see. With the region's economic vitality and low mortgage rates, I expect to see more buyers starting their search for a new home. Because of these factors, I have moved the needle a little more in favor of home sellers.
As Chief Economist for Windermere Real Estate, Matthew Gardner is responsible for analyzing and interpreting economic data and its impact on the real estate market on both a local and national level. Matthew has over 30 years of professional experience both in the U.S. and U.K.
Matthew also sits on the Washington State Governors Council of Economic Advisors; chairs the Board of Trustees at the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington; and is an Advisory Board Member at the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of Washington.


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AUGUSTA — The first tee shot clattered through a pair of pines on the left side of the 13th fairway, finally landing on the wrong side of Rae's Creek. Tiger Woods tried again, and this wasn't any better. Fans peered across the fairway and only heard the ball rifle through some bushes.
"He's hitting another one," a man announced from the gallery.
The third shot with a fairway metal caused them to retreat until it turned with a slight draw, clipping a pine branch and settling in the second cut of rough.
Woods played nine holes Wednesday morning in his final tuneup for the Masters, and how he played was of little consequence. Even so, that snapshot from the 13th tee was another reminder how quickly the best plans can fall apart, even for the No. 1 player on top of his game, especially at Augusta National.
Think back to Woods at his absolute best.
He won 10 times in 2000, including three majors, and finished no worse than fifth in 19 of his 22 tournaments worldwide. Going into the Masters, he either won or finished second in 10 of his previous 11 PGA Tour events. It felt as though everyone was playing for second at Augusta that year.
What happened?
Woods made a double bogey and a triple bogey in a span of three holes, shot 75 in the opening round and never caught up.
The hype over Woods is not that strong this year, though there is no doubt who is driving the conversation. Those who have played with him on the course or hit balls next to him on the range talked about how he never missed a shot. His putting has been pure since he got that tip from Steve Stricker last month at Doral. And it shows in the scores. Woods has won his last two tournaments, at Doral and Bay Hill, and neither was terribly close.
When the Masters begins Thursday, he is the odds-on favorite to end his five-year drought in the majors, and win a green jacket for the first time since 2005.
Trouble is, Augusta National doesn't play favorites.
"Obviously, Tiger is Tiger," said Scott Piercy, who will play alongside Woods and Luke Donald in the opening two rounds. "He's always going to be that target. He knows it, and that's how he wants it. But there's a lot of people getting closer. And the golfing gods, or whatever you want to call them, have a lot to do with winning. A bounce here, a bounce there. A lip in, a lip out."
Angel Cabrera got one of those bounces off a pine tree and back into the 18th fairway in 2009 that helped him save par and win a playoff on the next hole. Sure, he was a former U.S. Open champion, but the big Argentine was No. 69 in the world that year, the lowest-ranked player to ever win the Masters.
The hole got in the way twice for Charl Schwartzel in 2011, once on a chip across the first green that fell for birdie, another a shot from the third fairway that dropped for eagle. He finished with four straight birdies to win.
It has been 11 years since the No. 1 player in the world — Woods — won the Masters.
There is always the usual assortment of players who seem to contend every year for a green jacket. Phil Mickelson is a three-time Masters champion, his most recent in 2010 when he arrived at Augusta National without having come close to winning that year. Fred Couples was tied for the 36-hole lead last year at age 52. Rory McIlroy has shown he can play the course, at least on the weekdays. Lee Westwood has been among the top three twice since 2010.
But for every Woods there is Zach Johnson. For every Mickelson there is Trevor Immelman.
Johnson was just a normal guy from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who would not seem to fit the profile of a Masters champion. He wasn't very long, didn't hit the ball very high and didn't go for the green in two on any of the par 5s. He won by two shots in 2007.
"I thought I was playing good that week," Johnson said.
He might have been the only one who realized it. Johnson put the estimate at "0.5 percent" of those who could have pictured him in a green jacket. Then again, it's like that just about everywhere he goes.
"The favorite is all media-driven, all public-driven," Johnson said. "There are no surprises out there. There's probably 70 or 80 guys that you would not be surprised one bit if any of them won."
Three-time Masters champion Nick Faldo didn't name them all, but his list kept growing when he talked about 20 players who could win the Masters, all from what he referred to as the second tier and described as "pretty darn good."
Justin Rose, Ian Poulter and Luke Donald. Brandt Snedeker and Bill Haas. Louis Oosthuizen and Schwartzel.
"Yes, Tiger is the favorite," Faldo said. "He's strong. He's determined. We will see. But he's going to be chased by a lot of really good players."
Robert Garrigus considered the last few weeks on the PGA Tour to illustrate how fickle this game can be.
"I saw the odds on Tiger last night and I thought, 'Man, you just never know what's going to happen,'" Garrigus said. "I saw I was like 200-to-1, and thought if I could bet I might throw a couple of hundred dollars on me."
Woods is annoyed that seven Masters have come and gone since he last sat in Butler Cabin with his green jacket, though he looks at his record and isn't worried. He keeps giving himself chances, and he figures one of these years, everything will fall into place.
And he's still the guy to beat.
"One shot in front of Tiger is not a bad place to be around here," Ian Poulter said.
It all starts on Thursday, with the biggest concern a weather system that was due to arrive before the weekend and could alter the nature of the course. It has been beautiful all week, the kind of weather that allows officials to set the golf course for birdies or for pars, whatever they choose.
All eyes will be on Woods, though this might require some patience. Woods has broken 70 only once in his 16 years at Augusta as a pro. His average score is 71.9.
"I think everybody has the same thought on Tiger: We'll worry about that Sunday afternoon," Snedeker said. "I'm sure he's going to be up there. I think everybody has a complete idea of knowing he's probably playing the best golf in the world right now, hands down. If I'm there Sunday afternoon with Tiger Woods at some point ... it's probably going to be a good week because he's going to be somewhere close.".
Masters favorites beware